


Missed Connections

by stardropdream



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Children, Gen, Minor Character(s), Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 22:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7379752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three times Porthos and Aramis almost met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missed Connections

**Author's Note:**

> This involves some spoilers for 3x04, but if you don't know what you're looking for, I suppose it'd be easy enough to miss it.

**I.**  
Marie doesn’t mean to misstep, but when she does, she stumbles. Her infant makes a soft, mournful cry in her arms and shifts, but thankfully doesn’t waken. He’s been crying nonstop for days and she doesn’t know how to stop it, doesn’t know how to quell him. He’s only just managed to tire himself out with his screaming. 

Her legs are shaking, weak from hunger. It’s only been a few weeks since she’s found herself in this living hell, but there are no other options. She has to keep moving. She has to keep going, for his sake. 

She freezes once she does stumble, upsetting an old crate so it crashes to the ground, a cat letting out a low yowl before slinking away, mangy and malnourished. Marie stays frozen to the spot, rocking Porthos absently as he makes a few sleepy murmurs and curls in closer to her chest. 

She stays still for a long moment but when it seems nothing really is going to come of it, she starts picking through the crate, searching out any sort of fruit or food that might have been left behind, _something_ to keep her milk flowing, to keep her child alive. She can’t feed him if she hasn’t fed, and she’s desperate for it. Her hand is shaking from hunger. 

She freezes when she hears the door open behind her. She thought it would be late enough into the night that the women of the brothel would not hear her, too busy with their business and their clients. She swallows thickly and steels her shoulders as she lifts herself to her feet, ready to dash away as quickly as she can, before the prostitute can think to call for help or to hit her for scavenging. 

The woman in the doorway looks surprised but not unkind. But Marie knows kindness is only ever skin-deep. She starts inching towards the exit, clutching Porthos protectively to her chest. The woman has soft, curling hair that frames her face, her wide brown eyes. She is, of course, beautiful. 

“Oh,” she says, softly, and her voice is deeper than Marie would have guessed. “You surprised me.” 

Porthos stirs in her arms. She turns her body away slightly, giving this prostitute a wary look. 

Before either of them can speak, a little boy brushes past the wide skirts blocking his path. He is a spitting image of this woman, his hair wild and curling into his wide eyes and he starts squirming. He is young but round in the cheeks – plenty of food, despite it all – and Marie guesses he can’t be older than three. 

“Aramis,” the woman says, her voice hard as she reaches out and grasps the boy by his shoulder, tugging him back. “What have I told you about going outside when it’s night time?” 

The boy looks chastened, but not utterly despondent, trying to squirm from her grip even as she ushers him back inside. 

“Sorry, Mama,” he mumbles. “But Cook won’t let me play with her.” 

Marie’s stomach gurgles and she starts moving quicker, away from these two. 

“Wait,” the woman says and Marie stops before she can second-guess it. 

Her entire body shakes, a residual frustration at her instant obedience, honed into her after years. A moment later she takes a step, defiant, and swallows down thick. 

Softer, the woman calls, “Please, wait. You’re hungry, aren’t you?” 

She turns to look over her shoulder. But the woman is already turning and kneeling towards the boy, hands on his shoulders.

“Aramis, my darling,” she says, “go tell Cook that Mama would like some of the meats from this morning, please?” 

The boy nods eagerly and scampers off. The woman stands, dusting her hands off her dress and steps into the alleyway. Marie’s shoulders stiffen but she turns towards her, on guard. She keeps Porthos clutched tight to her, shielding him from her. 

“It’ll only be a moment,” she says. “Please… I just wish to help.”

Marie stares at her, distrusting. “I have no money.” 

“It’s alright,” she answers, as if it truly is alright. Marie glances at her and to the doorway, and then over her shoulder again. 

Marie says, “I have nothing to give you.”

“I only wish to help,” she repeats, as Aramis appears behind her, holding a small plate of meats. He holds it up triumphantly to her. 

He’s beaming when he says, “Here, Mama!” 

“Very good, my love,” she says, kneeling down to take the plate and kissing the top of his head. “You’ve helped me very much.” 

This only seems to make the child beam more. Marie feels her shoulders soften, just slightly, cradling her own child, rocking him without thought. 

When the woman approaches with the meats, though, she feels herself tensing up again, distrusting. She is smiling, but it could mean anything. She reaches out, yanks the meats from the plate, and then turns and dashes away before she can be stopped. 

She does not return. 

 

**II.**  
They’ve been riding in the carriage in silence for about a quarter of an hour when Aramis glances out the window. The carriage is slowing down, something blocking the road ahead. Aramis watches children scurry past the carriages and horses, ducking between people, their hands lifting and cupping, begging for scraps. 

Aramis watches the children weaving. Some are older than him but most are younger, their cheeks sunken. Most of them just look hungry.

He locks eyes, though, with someone who is, distinctly, angry. He glares at Aramis, glares at the carriage he rides in, and turns away. There’s dirt on his face, his hair stuck to his forehead. His hands are balled into fists. He looks hungry. 

Aramis swallows. 

“Father,” he begins, cautiously. 

His father is on the other side of the carriage, cheek resting against his hand, elbow against the sill of the carriage. 

“What?” he asks, but does not sound curious. 

Aramis sits up a little straighter, uncertain how to behave with this, uncertain just why he seeks out this man’s approval – this man he never knew until a month ago, this man who’d come today to the brothel to take him away from his mother. 

His mother, kneeling down in front of him, even though at ten he was already well on his way to being taller than her. His mother, placing her hands on his shoulders and telling him, _you must be brave, my darling. This is for the best._

He did not know his father. His mother had never spoken of him before, not really. Now, watching him, he seems proud – and above this. 

But Aramis presses on and says, “May we stop for a moment? There are some children in the street. I think they – if I might borrow some coin—”

He stumbles over the words, unsure how to speak it, unsure how to put voice to his concerns, his ideas.

His father gives him a sharp look. “Why in God’s heaven should we do that?” 

Aramis knows little, but knows his father is a man of God. Certainly that, then, would be enough—

“Charity,” Aramis offers, somewhat tentatively. “It’s the right thing to do.” 

His father regards him – not angry, not dismissive – but curious. As if he is attempting to puzzle his son out. Aramis sits up a little straighter. Glances out the window at the children curling around the people. Looking for food. 

“If we gave money to every person we came across, we’d be ruined, my boy,” his father says, not unkindly but not generously, either. 

The angry boy isn’t looking anymore. Aramis watches in a daze as he moves closer towards a group of men watching the proceeding of carriages. His hair shines in the sun. His ears, he thinks idly, look rather small, his nose rounded. His cheeks would have been round, too, he thinks – in another time, full of enough food. 

“Mama would have helped,” Aramis says, knows that to be true. 

“Your mother,” his father says, somewhat harshly, “is a fool and does not understand restraint.” 

Aramis flinches, bites down on the urge to defend her, to run back to her. 

He looks out the window. The carriage is starting to move again, commerce moving along around them, men walking home, women gathering bread into baskets. Aramis watches the angry boy stick his hand into someone’s pockets and draw out a purse thick with coin when the owner isn’t looking at him. Aramis gasps. 

There’s no way the boy could have heard him from this far away but the boy turns, looks, and sees Aramis staring at him. He stiffens up, his expression clouding – angry and longing and frustration. Aramis isn’t sure what he sees, but enough flashes in the boy’s eyes, even from this distance, that Aramis doesn’t sound any alarm. 

The boy stares at him a moment longer and then ducks into an alleyway and is gone from sight. 

 

**III.**  
He doesn’t go to the brothels often, mostly because the Madames will bat him away with brooms or sticks, if they have them available. But he feels like he’s eating himself alive from the inside out. Flea was on ahead, picking pockets in the market square. Charon was trying the brothel further down the road. 

Porthos stumbles his way through the alley, running his fingers along the side paneling of the building, searching for the back entrance. If he times it right, he should be able to find some food, or some coin, or at least a gentle soul that’d feel sorry enough to give him a slice of bread. Something. Anything. 

He’s too young to be a customer, even if he can’t know how old he is now, so he can’t use it as an excuse. But he’s quiet. And he knows how to go unnoticed. 

The door is unlocked when he tries the latch. He sucks in a sharp breath and slips into the darkness of the back room. It smells musty and perfumed, the distance wafting clouds of flowers and fruit. 

He creeps along in the shadows, moving slowly, keeping his ears primed for any sound. When he turns the corner and slips into the kitchens, it’s mercifully empty. There are a few chunks of stale bread on the tabletop and Porthos’ stomach twists up in his hunger. 

He stumbles forward, fists his hand around a slice of bread, and shoves it into his mouth before he can second-guess it. 

He’s too distracted, it seems, because he hears a gasp and the clatter of a bowl dropping to the ground. Porthos whips around to see a young girl, eyes wide, her wispy blonde hair falling into her eyes. She stumbles back and he makes a sound of shock and surprise, trying to move away, trying to dart around her and get back out the door.

“Elodie,” a woman’s voice calls. “What’s wrong, did you dro—”

A beautiful woman steps into the doorway just as Porthos is trying to dive through it. He runs into her, lets out a small cry, and falls onto his back. He sits up quickly and scampers back, eyes wide, his heart beating like a bird’s. He eyes the window. He eyes the two women standing between him and his exit. He could shove them out of the way. He could—

“Oh my,” the woman says – obviously one of the girl’s of the house. She says it not in a way that denotes disgust, at least, but her hands fall protectively to Elodie’s shoulders. “How did you get in here?” 

His heart hammering, Porthos looks around hurriedly, looking for something to grab as a weapon, to ward these women off. He stumbles to his feet, grabs a chair, shoves it between him and them. 

“It’s alright,” the woman says, gently moving Elodie so she’s behind her. She says to her, “Go upstairs and play, darling.” Then she turns to Porthos as Elodie runs off, looking back at Porthos over her shoulder. The woman steps forward and Porthos stiffens, clutches at the chair protectively, ready to throw it. 

“Stay back,” he squeaks. 

Her eyes fall on the bread and she gives him a warm, if sympathetic, smile. “You must be hungry.”

He looks at her, distrusting, waiting. He eyes the exit again. If he threw the chair at her and ran, he should—

“Here,” she says, leaning over and pushing the plate of bread towards him. “I know it isn’t much, but you should eat.” 

He stares at her, disbelieving. 

“Go on,” she says. 

He stares at her another moment longer and then he leans over and yanks the second piece of bread off the plate and shoves it into his mouth before she changes her mind. 

Her smile turns gentler still, soft around the edges – longing. He knows the look of longing too well, although he mostly sees it on Flea’s face when there’s food just beyond her reach, longing on Charon’s face when his father died the day after his birthday. 

Porthos chews and swallows the bread. 

“Take as much as you’d like,” she says. 

He watches her, wary still, but keeps eating. 

“I once had a son like you,” she says, quietly, after a long pause. The words are softly spoken, but weighted. He doesn’t know what’s prompted it, but it explains the gentle way she’s looking at him. “He was kind and gentle.” 

He isn’t kind or gentle, he thinks, and the woman has no way to know that. He narrows his eyes. 

“Did he die?” Porthos asks, before he can think to blunt the ferocity of his words. He ducks his head and yanks the bread in his mouth until a piece rips away, chewing quickly – afraid she will rescind the gift now. 

“He’s gone to live with his father,” she says, voice far away for a moment – traveling, perhaps, to where her son is. She does not reach for the bread but Porthos chews faster still. “Only yesterday. It’s for the best… he’ll have a better life than I can give him.” 

Porthos studies her. 

She gives a small smile. “That’s all a mother can hope for, isn’t it?” 

He looks down, clenches his free hand to the chair. He doesn’t look at her again. 

“You can stay for as long as you’d like,” she says, and it is not unkind, but it skews in his vision – something too akin to another woman years ago lost to him. 

He grabs the rest of the bread and kicks the chair towards her. She stumbles back in surprise but he’s already running around her and out the door. He doesn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](http://stardropdream.tumblr.com/), as always.


End file.
